34 SOCIAL SCIENCES Vol. 52, No.

3, 2021

Russia and the European Union:

Deferred Partnership
Nadezhda ARBATOVA

Abstract. This article is devoted to the study of the fundamental reasons

that led to a profound crisis in Russia’s relations with the European Union
and the West as a whole. The focus is on the objective changes in interna-
tional relations and the subjective factors in the policies of the RF and the
EU that predetermined the vector of their interaction. This article provides a
layer-by-layer analysis of these causes starting with a superficial perception
of problems and going progressively deeper and deeper to the sources of the
current crisis. This method of analysis may be called the “matryoshka (nested
doll) method.” In other words, we offer a countdown from today’s crisis to the
post-bipolar start of cooperation between Russia and the EU. Why did things
go wrong after getting off to such a good start? And finally, who is to blame
for a partnership that did not happen and is there a way out of the impasse?

Keywords: Russia, European Union, USA, China, CIA, international re-

lations, European security, Euro-Atlantic relations, EU and NATO enlarge-
ment, Ukraine conflict, Caucasus crisis, peacekeeping operations, conflicts.

http://dx.doi.org/10.21557/SSC.69990128

Ukraine Conflict: Cause or Consequence?

Relations between Russia and the European Union over the past almost three
decades have seen many ups and downs and have often verged on crisis. The
amount of problems that arose in these relations after the breakup of the USSR has
had a negative impact on the quality of partnership between the RF and the EU.

N. Arbatova, D. Sc. (Political Science), Head of Department for European Political Stud-
ies, Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Rus-
sian Academy of Sciences (IMEMO). E-mail: arbatova@imemo.ru.
This article was first published in Russian in the journal Mirovaya ekonomika i mezh-
dunarodnyye otnosheniya (World Economy and International Relations. 2021. Vol. 65. No. 5,
pp. 14-27; DOI: 10.20542/0131-2227-2021-65-5-14-27).
The article was prepared as part of the project “Post-Crisis World Order: Challenges and
Technologies, Competition and Cooperation,” supported by a grant from the Ministry of Science
and Higher Education of the Russian Federation program for research projects in priority areas
of scientific and technological development (Agreement no. 075-15-2020-783).
Russia and the European Union: Deferred Partnership 35

The Russian political elite repeatedly expressed concern about the structural crisis
inside the European Union, the growth of nationalism and radicalism in Europe,
the anti-Russian attitude of some “new Europe” countries, etc. However, until the
Ukraine conflict [4], the partners managed to maintain a good level of interaction
and positive capital in bilateral relations. The EU and Russia took the 2008 Cau-
casus crisis more or less in stride, but the conflict in Ukraine, especially Crimea
becoming part of Russia, was a moment of truth. The European Union sees it as
the main cause of today’s rift in post-bipolar Europe and a dramatic deterioration
of relations between the EU and Russia.
Unlike the 2008 Caucasus crisis, which was from the outset a confrontation
between Russia and NATO, the Ukraine conflict, on the face of it, started as a
clash between the European Union and the RF – or rather, as the rivalry of their re-
gional strategies, the EU’s Eastern Partnership (EaP) and Russia’s Eurasian Union
project. Several starting points of the exacerbation of tensions between Russia and
the EU can be named, including Ukraine’s refusal to sign an Association Agree-
ment with the European Union, a decision Kiev made in November 2013 shortly
before the Vilnius summit.
We believe that the turning point occurred earlier. In 2012, with Vladimir
Putin’s return to the presidency, Moscow switched the vector of its development
from Europe to Eurasia, and it did not want Ukraine to be on the other side of
the divide. Enthusiasm for Russia’s Eurasian destiny arose during the period of
uncertainty about the perspective of the country’s modernization. The economic
and financial crisis of the West led Putin to the conclusion that Russia should stop
being lectured by the enfeebled EU, which in the Kremlin’s opinion no longer
had the right to tell other states how they should run their countries and what path
toward economic prosperity they should follow. A further stimulus for the pivot
toward Eurasia was the EU’s negative reaction to Putin’s return to the Kremlin in
2012. Putin decided that Russia should modernize its economy without looking
toward European technological innovations but instead adopting a new industrial-
ization plan based on modern national technologies and the Eurasian Union. The
latter was to create a common political, economic, military, customs, humanitar-
ian, and cultural space that would be equal to the EU [1, p. 3]. However, much in
that concept remained unclear. The emphasis on the defense industry and on So-
viet technologies had failed to prevent the collapse of the Soviet Union. Besides,
where would new technologies come from and how did that project relate to the
modernization project, which was officially still valid?
In retrospect, one has to admit that Russia overreacted to the European project
of Eastern Partnership. Moscow had the impression that the Association Agree-
ment that Kiev signed with Brussels would almost automatically make Ukraine a
member of the European Union. And yet history attests that there is a major differ-
ence between associated membership and the status of a candidate for EU mem-
bership. For example, Turkey, a NATO member and a co-founder of the Council
of Europe, OECD and other international organizations, gained the status of an
associated member of the EEC in 1964. It filed a formal application to join the
EU 23 years later (1987) and it was granted the status of candidate country only
36 SOCIAL SCIENCES Vol. 52, No. 3, 2021

12 years later (1999). In another six years (in 2005), negotiations on Turkey’s
accession to the EU began. They continue to this day without any prospect of
membership. The Kremlin’s fixation on Kiev’s European choice was due to the
fact that for Russia, Ukraine was the most important country in the post-Soviet
space without which no major integration project within the Commonwealth of
Independent States (CIS) in its original meaning was possible.
The European Union’s strategy with regard to the post-Soviet space was es-
tablished in the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) aimed at stabilizing its
closest neighbors. Russia refused to take part in the ENP, and at the Russia-EU
summit in St. Petersburg in 2003, decided that relations with the European Union
would develop in the format of four common cooperation spaces outside the ENP
framework. The idea of the EU Eastern Partnership project had been initiated
by Sweden and Poland in 2007, before the Caucasus crisis, but it did not ac-
quire a concrete shape until 2009. In the opinion of European leaders, the conflict
between Georgia and Russia, which led to the independence of South Ossetia
and Abkhazia, ruled out Russia’s participation in the Eastern Neighbourhood
program. However, the formal pretext for not inviting Russia to join the Eastern
Partnership was Russia’s refusal to take part in the European Union’s regional
projects, in particular the ENP, and to develop cooperation in a separate strategic
partnership format.
The Eastern Partnership became the EU’s reaction to the shortcomings of the
Neighbourhood Policy, its disappointment with the “orange revolutions” in the
CIS space and tacit acknowledgment of the failure of GUAM1 as a subregional
integration association. The Eastern Partnership sought to promote political rap-
prochement and economic integration of the European Union with six countries
(Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine) to which Brus-
sels could not offer a prospect of membership within the next several years and to
promote reform in the Eastern Partnership countries. All these measures were to
stabilize the situation in the immediate proximity of the EU.
Initially, Russia’s attitude to the Eastern Partnership was relatively calm, al-
though there was a sneaking suspicion that the European Union was intruding
into a region of Russia’s special interests in the post-Soviet space and was trying
to oust it from there by depriving it of the status of privileged partner of the CIS
states. Although security issues were not on the EP agenda, the fact that Brussels
had included in its project Armenia and Belarus, Russia’s closest allies in the
CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organization), made the Kremlin suspicious
of the European Union’s real goals [10]. These fears were corroborated by the
statements of some European experts. For example, the German political ana-
lyst Alexander Rahr said in an interview that through the EP, “the EU sought to
remove Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, and even Belarus from under Russia’s influ-
ence and effectively push Russia away from Europe into Asia. Very little has been
said within this European partnership about attempts or stimuli to integrate Russia
into the common European space” [21]. Ian Kearns, director of the European
Leadership Network (ELN), spoke in much the same vein: “Many in the EU now
acknowledge that far too little consideration was given to Russian sensitivities,
Russia and the European Union: Deferred Partnership 37

interests and residual capacity to influence events on the ground, particularly but
of course not only in Ukraine” [14].
The prospect of Ukraine signing an Association Agreement with the EU which
envisaged the creation of a free trade zone, met with a negative reaction from Moscow
not only because of the clash of two regional projects, the EU’s Eastern Partnership
and Russia’s Eurasian project. The Russian leadership began to suspect that the EP
was a smoke screen to cover up NATO expansion into the CIS space. In the opinion
of Gerhard Schroeder, Russia repossessed Crimea because of NATO enlargement,
and if Ukraine had joined NATO, as the USA wanted it to, Sevastopol, one of the key
Russian sea ports, would be on the territory of the Western alliance [23].
It has to be noted that NATO enlargement had a big impact on Russia’s per-
ception of the policy of EU enlargement because the leaders of both organizations
repeatedly stressed that these were two mutually complementary processes in
bringing the countries of Central and Eastern Europe back into Europe. Formally,
NATO enlargement was justified by the desire of the Central and Eastern Europe
countries to join the Euro-Atlantic partnership to redress a historical injustice with
regard to these countries, which had been torn away from Europe as a result of
the split into two systems. Although the European Union’s Copenhagen criteria2
do not define NATO membership as a necessary condition for joining the EU, the
recent waves of EU expansion to the post-communist countries of Central and
Eastern Europe confirm that this was the case de facto. First the candidate coun-
tries join the West’s security alliance, NATO, and then they can claim EU mem-
bership. This factor changed Russia’s initial positive attitude to the enlargement
of the European Union and its Neighbourhood Policy and the Eastern Partnership.
The Kremlin came to see the advance of both alliances to the post-Soviet space as
a threat to the country’s vital interests.
An abrupt downturn in relations between Russia and the West was caused by
the Bucharest NATO summit (April 2008), which discussed the issue of Ukraine
and Georgia joining the NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP). The US, backed
by Canada and the “new Europe” countries,3 ardently supported Georgia and
Ukraine joining the MAP. “Old Europe,” led by the Franco-German tandem, urged
NATO not to be in a hurry for fear of a negative reaction from Russia. Although
Georgia and Ukraine were not officially invited to join the MAP in Bucharest,
they were given to understand that they could become NATO members when they
met the organization’s membership criteria. Georgian President Mikhail Saakash-
vili took Washington’s support too literally and tried to force a military solution
to the problem with the rebellious regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia so that
these conflicts would not stand in the way of Georgia’s NATO membership. It all
ended up in Georgia losing these autonomies.
In the 2008 war with Georgia, Russia drew a red line: “No to NATO expan-
sion to the Russian zone of influence.” Security considerations were also at the
basis of the Russian takeover of Crimea, although the Ukrainian case was differ-
ent from the Georgian scenario. In the opinion of part of the Russian elite, after
Moscow’s tough reaction in the Caucasus crisis, the West decided to change its
tactics and prioritized the European Union with its EP program that would pave
38 SOCIAL SCIENCES Vol. 52, No. 3, 2021

the way for NATO. As early as 2009, US Ambassador Extraordinary and Pleni-
potentiary to Ukraine William Taylor, when asked whether Ukraine should join
NATO in order to then join the EU, replied that Ukraine should decide for itself
whether to join the European Union or NATO first [24].
In retrospect, many Western experts admitted that NATO expansion had pre-
cipitated Russia’s takeover of Crimea. For example, the British Reuters news
agency, commenting on the Russian takeover of Crimea, wrote that “Russia has
long opposed NATO’s eastward expansion as threatening its own security and
says Kiev’s plan to associate itself more closely with the West – including with the
military alliance and the European Union – has forced it to react” [22].
In addition, some Western experts point out that territorial conflicts in the CIS
countries seen by NATO as potential members automatically take the issue off the
NATO agenda. After the 2008 “five-day war,” Moscow recognized the separatist
regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states, which made it much
more difficult for NATO to admit Georgia and undertake to defend that divided
state [9]. The same can be said about Ukraine. At the same time, the Kremlin’s
tough reaction to the expansion of the EU and NATO to the CIS increases the de-
sire of Ukraine and Georgia to join these organizations. The confrontation creates
a vicious circle, making it impossible to settle the differences between Russia, on
the one hand, and its neighbors and the West, on the other hand.
In other words, the Caucasus crisis and the Ukrainian conflict that European
leaders declare to be the main cause of the deterioration of relations with the
RF are not the cause but a consequence of deeper problems. These problems
stem from the different perceptions of Russia and the West of the foundations of
post-bipolar security in Europe and rivalry in the post-Soviet space.

The Clash of Two Approaches to European Security

The end of bilateral confrontation put into bold relief the issue of the in-
stitutional foundations of post-bipolar Europe. After the collapse of the USSR,
the Russian leadership considered the Organization for Security and Cooperation
in Europe (OSCE) a security organization conceptually better prepared for the
new realities than NATO. First and foremost, the OSCE was the only collective
security organization in Europe in which Russia had a full voice and a say in the
decision-making process. That is why Russia preferred it as the main European
security institution. Russia’s efforts in the 1990s to enhance the role of the OSCE
in Europe and turn it into a “European UN” were to a large extent prompted
by disappointment in NATO’s policy in the post-communist space. However, the
reforms of the OSCE (creation of some new bodies while preserving the former
decision-making mechanism) launched in the early 1990s failed to make a cardi-
nal change and increase the organization’s role in addressing specific European
security problems, as witnessed by the first stage of the Yugoslavia crisis.
Among other things, Russia continued to insist on the consensus principle
because it was afraid to be outvoted on issues that were important for Russia’s in-
Russia and the European Union: Deferred Partnership 39

terests. The result was a vicious circle, with Russia opposing the implementation
of a new OSCE model that it advocated itself. Russia’s insistence of the need to
strengthen the OSCE as an alternative to NATO as the central frame of European
security also turned out to be counterproductive for Russian interests. This po-
sition was of course fiercely opposed by NATO countries, especially by the US,
which did not want to see a stronger OSCE. Russia’s efforts aimed at enhancing
the role of the OSCE to turn it into a “European UN” in the mid-1990s were
prompted by the Kremlin’s concern about NATO’s increased role in the security
system that was emerging in Europe [6, p. 149]. The entire post-Soviet space was
de facto divided between two organizations: NATO and the OSCE. The former
was responsible for the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the latter for
the CIS countries. This was bound to eventually change Russia’s attitude toward
the OSCE because it created the impression that it was a second-rate organization
for second-rate countries.
On the whole, it has to be said that after the end of bipolarity, the West dis-
played a condescending attitude toward the OSCE, an organization that had
played a key role in strengthening stability in Europe. It claimed that “the role of
this loose conference of nations (and it remained essentially a conference despite
its recent name change)4 could never be more than complementary” [8]. The West
scoffed at Russia’s contradictory attempts to reform the OSCE because it had no
doubt as to which organization should be the main structure of European security.
NATO leadership and the leaders of its member countries did not consider any al-
ternative institutional basis for the security of the post-bipolar Europe. Christoph
Bertram, a prominent German political scientist, candidly expressed the view
prevalent in NATO. “When the old order of the Cold War disappeared, the Alli-
ance might have disappeared with it. Military pacts usually last no longer than the
threat they are created to deter. As the walls tumbled all over Europe, there were
many who hoped that now the Cold War alliances would be replaced by an all-Eu-
ropean security framework – and few foresaw that this new framework would in
the end have to be provided by NATO. But this is how it has turned out, not only
because NATO’s members continued to feel comfortable with their organization
(my italics – N. A.) but also because there was no other structure in place which
could offer a realistic alternative to them as well as to the many other states now
seeking a stable international environment on the continent” [8]. The remarkable
thing about this long quotation is that it bluntly attributes the unpreparedness of
NATO’s leadership for cardinal reform of the European security system to that
organization’s bureaucratic interests.
At the same time, NATO leadership was aware that the traditional goals for
the sake of which the West had created this defense alliance had disappeared after
the end of bipolarity. The prime goal of NATO was to defend the West against a
potential threat from the East, the USSR, and the Warsaw Pact. With Europe split
into two hostile camps, the threat from the East was the main factor that cemented
Atlantic solidarity. The collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, the emer-
gence of an independent Russia, which declared its readiness for democratic reform,
deprived NATO of its former and sole enemy. Despite the contradictory develop-
40 SOCIAL SCIENCES Vol. 52, No. 3, 2021

ment of the RF after the breakup of the USSR, the errors and miscalculations of the
Russian leadership in domestic and foreign policy, which fueled the West’s fears
concerning Russian unpredictability, the so-called Russia factor, could not play the
same unifying role as the Soviet threat in ensuring Atlantic solidarity. Even Russia’s
takeover of Crimea did not prove to be a signal to the West to return to traditional
Atlanticism. The dream of convinced Atlanticists about returning to the original
state turned out to be illusory because status quo ante belongs to the Cold War era,
when Western Europe was totally dependent on the American ally for its security.
NATO’s second goal – to control Germany – became already irrelevant during the
Cold War. Germany is a democratic and economically flourishing state, an inalien-
able part of the Alliance and the European Union and an engine of European inte-
gration. Finally, the third goal – to ensure a US presence in Europe – objectively
underwent radical changes owing to the development of European integration in
the sphere of common external and security policy as US security interests shifted
toward the Asia Pacific region.
Thus a new goal was found in the process of expansion to the countries of
Central and Eastern Europe. In other words, expansion to the East was chosen as
the new function of NATO, which was to give the organization a new lease on life
without any radical changes.
At the formal level, relations with Russia, from NATO’s viewpoint, were set-
tled by the signing of the 1997 Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation
and Security between NATO and the Russian Federation and the creation of the
Permanent Joint Council, which failed to withstand the very first serious test, the
Kosovo crisis. Ironically, NATO’s military operation against Yugoslavia in 1999
was the first operation of an enlarged NATO, which merely confirmed Moscow’s
suspicions concerning the true meaning of NATO enlargement.
Leaving aside the question of whether a process can in principle replace a
goal, it has to be admitted that NATO’s decision to expand ultimately marked the
triumph of traditional views on European security despite all the rhetoric about
indivisible security in the post-bipolar world. The psychological aspect of the
issue should also be taken into account. Because Russia was fiercely opposed to
NATO expansion and its political elite reacted angrily to every new move in this
direction, this created a confrontational climate, which kept NATO in its tradition-
al dimension. Looking back, we can safely say that relations between Russia and
NATO were developing in accordance with the logic of self-fulfilling prophecies.
The growth of anti-NATO sentiments in Russia was not lost even on Boris Yeltsin,
who from time to time delivered angry “Russia will not allow” tirades against
NATO and Washington, thus convincing the West that it had chosen the right path.
The fact that NATO openly ignored Russia’s positions further fueled mutual sus-
picions. The main reason for Russia’s negative attitude to NATO expansion was
that it was “an open-ended process,” which led the Kremlin to suspect, not with-
out reason, as it turned out, that the Alliance sought to advance into the CIS space.
The post-Soviet space did not turn into one of the main arenas of international
contradictions between Russia and the West (EU, NATO/US) at once. After the
disappearance of the “communist bloc,” the EU’s strategy concentrated on the so-
Russia and the European Union: Deferred Partnership 41

called People’s Democracies seeking to integrate eight former communist coun-

tries in Central Europe and the Baltic region. This strategy was primarily based on
security considerations. The war in Yugoslavia revealed conflict potential in the
post-communist countries. By integrating the former socialist countries of Cen-
tral Europe, the European Union sought to neutralize that conflict potential in its
immediate proximity. It stabilized the Eastern neighbors by absorbing them and
bringing their institutions in line with its own institutions [11, p. 5].
In principle, the EU’s relations with its neighbor states envisage three levels of
relations: cooperation, association, and full membership. Initially, the former Sovi-
et space was not included in the EU enlargement strategy. Moldova was the only
exception. It belonged to the Southeastern Europe (SEE) region, which was also
included in the EU regional strategy, the Stabilization and Association Process, and
it did not envisage automatic EU membership. As distinct from the CEU and SEE,
with Russia5 and the 10 former Soviet republics that were members of the CIS (ex-
cept Tajikistan), the European Union signed standard Partnership and Cooperation
Agreements (PCA), the lowest format of relations with third countries.
Brussels, of course, recognized Russia’s importance as the closest neighbor.
In the mid-1990s the EU adopted a course to include the RF into Greater Europe.
However, neither the EU nor Russia had a clear vision of the goals and essence of
this initiative. It had a generally well-meaning character, which is evident in the
statements of prominent European political figures, members of the Commission
for Greater Europe, at the Commission’s meeting in Moscow in 1994. In the opin-
ion of Jacques Chirac, the Commission’s chairman, the priority for the Europeans
was to be assisting Russia in establishing strong long-term links with the Euro-
pean countries. Otto Lambsdorff, president of the Liberal International, claimed
that a very high level of integration between Russia and Europe could be achieved
even without Russia joining the EU. Alois Mock, the Foreign Minister of Austria
and chairman of the European Democratic Union, said that Russia undoubtedly
had the right to be in Europe if it wanted to [19, pp. 9, 29, 19].
Unlike NATO, Russia in its attitude to EU enlargement proceeded from the as-
sumption that European integration was a logical, objective process that contributed
to the expansion of the zone of stability and economic prosperity on the European
continent. This favorable attitude was based on the expectation that EU enlargement
would be an alternative to NATO expansion. However, that did not happen.
The West – both the EU and NATO – only became interested in the CIS space
after the CEE happily returned to the fold of European and Euro-Atlantic integration
and the Balkan countries embarked on the process of economic and political democra-
tization. After the collapse of the USSR in the early 1990s, neither the EU nor NATO
evinced any desire to become involved in resolving conflicts on the territory of new
independent states (NIS) in the CIS, leaving it to Russia to sort out its “near abroad.”
Looking back, it can be said that this was a short-sighted policy that missed a chance
to cooperate with the RF in peacekeeping operations. Russia’s participation in the
NATO peacekeeping operation in Bosnia was practically the only positive instance of
such cooperation because the format of the peacekeeping operation in Kosovo merely
exacerbated the contradictions between Russia and the Western partners.
42 SOCIAL SCIENCES Vol. 52, No. 3, 2021

However, after Russia managed to stabilize this space (more often than not
by force through the freezing of conflicts), the European Union and NATO began
to show an interest in involving the post-Soviet states (all except Russia) in their
regional strategies. The driving force of the two organizations’ regional strategies
was the revival of “Russian expansionism.” The West’s obsession with the threat
of the Kremlin’s neo-imperial ambitions strengthened anti-Western sentiments in
Russian society and a sense of a beleaguered fortress, creating a vicious circle
situation.
At the same time, it must be acknowledged that it was Russia’s setbacks on
the path toward democratic transformations that rekindled its neighbors’ feelings
of uncertainty and fear. It has only itself to blame for failing to formulate a new
realistic concept of European security in a timely manner. Only the Russian lead-
ership is to blame for failing to build new relations with the former Soviet repub-
lics and slipping into a counterproductive model of relations based on economic
bonuses in exchange for political loyalty. Finally, by starting the first Chechen war
Moscow provided a pretext for the West and the neighboring states to use Russian
“unpredictability” to speed up NATO enlargement.
As early as 1993, Russian Foreign Minister Andrey Kozyrev added fuel to
the fire of Western suspicions by describing the “near abroad” as “a unique, one-
of-a-kind geopolitical space to which no one except Russia can bring peace.” The
West saw this as a commitment not to allow “third countries” into the region. The
Yeltsin leadership wanted the CIS to be recognized as an international organiza-
tion with observer status at the UN General Assembly. Seeking to enlist the West’s
support for the peacekeeping operations that Russia and the other CIS states were
carrying out in the post-Soviet space, Kozyrev made another attempt at an OSCE
leaders’ summit in Budapest in December 1994, fueling Western suspicions con-
cerning Moscow’s goals in the region [16].
In the end, mistrust and suspiciousness concerning each other’s true inten-
tions turned the CIS into a zone of rivalry between Russia and the West along
with the Greater Middle East and South Asia. It became evident that rivalry in
the region could spill over from economic and political spheres into military con-
frontation between the leading powers and their alliances in conflict zones. The
new confrontation between Russia and the West with unpredictable consequences
became reality, as witnessed by the Caucasus crisis and the Ukrainian conflict.
However, the differences between the two actors over the system of European
security and the place in it of the post-Soviet states that engendered these conflicts
have deeper roots.

Who Lost the Cold War?

Thirty years after the disintegration of the USSR, which marked the end of
the bipolar era, arguments as to who lost the Cold War continue unabated both in
Russia and in the West. There is some confusion in terminology. The end of the
Cold War between Gorbachev’s Soviet Union and the West was marked by the
Russia and the European Union: Deferred Partnership 43

adoption of The Charter of Paris for a New Europe in November 1990. But it did
not mark the end of bipolarity, which happened a year later with the collapse of
the USSR. Being so close in time, these two events are perceived by many as one
phenomenon. In any case, it was felt that by losing the Cold War, the Soviet Union
was doomed – i.e., that since it broke up, it was the losing side.
American historian John Lewis Gaddis, author of a brilliant study of the Cold
War, meanwhile believed that international détente extended the life of the Soviet
Union [26]. This is debatable, because détente was an unnatural “environment”
for the USSR that had been created for confrontation with the West. Although
Gorbachev’s Soviet Union differed in many important ways from the USSR of
Stalin and even of Brezhnev, détente was eroding its systemic foundations, de-
priving it of meaning. Gorbachev’s reform was more an improvisation driven by
the idea of “socialism with a human face” and the notion that one cannot live in
confrontation with the whole world. Mikhail Gorbachev did not want to destroy
the USSR; he wanted to reform what could not be reformed by definition. The
Soviet-style autocratic system, while not being too sophisticated in conception,
had its iron logic and a certain harmony. For this reason, it was impossible to
remove a single brick from its foundation without bringing down the whole build-
ing. Stalin was very well aware of this, and the Iron Curtain was intended to
protect the Soviet structure form the “harmful influence” of Western liberalism.
Perestroika (restructuring) and new political thinking were incompatible with the
structure designed only for the Cold War. The Soviet Union lost not the Cold War,
but détente, which demonstrated the ineffectiveness of the Soviet economic and
political model under normal, non-military and non-confrontational conditions.
The question of who lost and who won the Cold War does not only have the-
oretical and philosophical implications, but is directly linked with the evolution
of post-bipolar international relations, above all the relations between Russia
and the main Western power centers – the EU and NATO/US. World wars – and
the Cold War was a world war between the two systems – as a rule ended with
peace congresses at which the victorious countries established a new world or-
der. The Western countries, above all the US, considered themselves, by default,
to be the winners and Russia the loser in the Cold War. The end of bipolarity
gave a powerful impetus to the development of European integration and gave
birth to the European Union, which replaced the European Economic Com-
munity in 1993. NATO was celebrating victory, having survived its rival, the
Warsaw Pact, and felt that for this reason, the North Atlantic Alliance should be
the basis of European security. The need for a new world order after the collapse
of the bilateral confrontation was not on the agenda of the US, NATO or the
EU. Indeed, the Helsinki Decalogue, the 10 famous principles of the Helsinki
Final Act, came to be seen as an anachronism in Europe and the US. This elim-
inated the rules of international political behavior of powers whose observance
guaranteed the prevention of conflicts in Europe during the years of bilateral
confrontation. The US, which considered itself the main winner that defeated
the Soviet Union, proclaimed itself to be “the pole of democracy and freedom.”
American triumphalism after the Cold War had two different versions, neither
44 SOCIAL SCIENCES Vol. 52, No. 3, 2021

of which, however, set the goal of restructuring international relations in accor-

dance with the new realities. “First was the Clinton version, which promoted a
prosperity agenda of market values on a global scale.” Odd Arne Westad, a Nor-
wegian scholar specializing in the history of the Cold War, noted that “its lack of
purpose in international affairs was striking, but its domestic political instincts
were probably right: Americans were tired of foreign entanglements and wanted
to enjoy ‘the peace dividend.’ ” The second was the Bush version. Where Presi-
dent Bill Clinton emphasized prosperity, President George W. Bush emphasized
predominance. The Bush version was designed by his foreign policy advisers
who thought mainly in Cold War terms, stressing the importance of projecting
power, controlling territories, and regime change [25]. In other words, both the
US leaders, having declared the US the winner of the Cold War and the leader of
the free world, were unconcerned with problems of a new world order.
It is important to note that neither the US nor Europe, in spite of their support
of the Russian democratic reformers, actually had a condescending, not to say
dismissive, attitude toward post-Soviet Russia. Whereas during the Cold War, no
international issue of any importance could be solved, as Soviet Foreign Minister
Andrey Gromyko said, “without the Soviet Union or in opposition to it,” after the
collapse of the USSR, that irritant disappeared. Russia, which had emerged from
the Soviet Union, was perceived in the US and Europe as a weak and dependent
state, which had lost its superpower status. Michael Mandelbaum, an American
political scientist of note, wrote that “six years after the end of the Soviet Union,
the successor Russian government was weak, weaker not only than its tsarist and
communist predecessors but considerably weaker than its Western counterparts”
[17].
In criticizing the Western policy vis-à-vis Russia, Mandelbaum stressed: “This
Western approach to Russia was not, as during the Cold War, one of active, prin-
cipled hostility. Indeed, the two major Western initiatives were not, on the whole,
aimed at Russia at all. On the basis of NATO and EU initiatives, however, neither
could the Western approach to Russia be described as one of active embrace. Six
years after the end of the Soviet Union, the door to the West was not closed to
Russia; but neither was it flung wide open. Post-communist Russia was not, in
any case, yet in a position to walk confidently through that door. When and if it
is ready to do so, however – and indeed even before that – Russian foreign policy
would not, and will not, be determined by Russia alone” (my italics – N. A.) [17].
In Europe, the prominent British political scientist Lawrence Freedman summed
up this view most bluntly when he wrote that “there is now no particular reason
to classify Russia as a ‘great power.…’ It cannot therefore expect the privileges,
respect and extra sensitivity to its interests normally accorded a great power” [12,
p. 26]. There is no doubt that the condescending attitude of the US and Europe to
ward Russia created an explosive potential for the future.
This attitude of the West to Russia is partly due to the fact that it simply did
not understand what Russia wanted, what its foreign policy goals and resources
were. Over two years the Russian leadership did not come up with any more or
less realistic or coherent initiative aimed at resolving conflicts, arms control or
Russia and the European Union: Deferred Partnership 45

reform of international organizations that would be helpful in solving the prob-

lems that arose after the end of the Cold War. It is worth recalling that Russia’s
first important initiative in this field, the European Security Treaty (EST), was put
forward by President Dmitry Medvedev only 20 years later, when the internation-
al situation was not so favorable. The Russian proposal of a regional pact “based,
naturally, on the principles of the UN Charter and clearly defining the role of force
as a factor in relations within the Euro-Atlantic community” [18], provoked a
barrage of criticism in the West. The initiative was perceived as an attempt to split
NATO and create new spheres of influence in Europe.
Lacking foreign policy experience (as distinct, for example, from Gorbachev),
President Yeltsin saw the new relations between Russia and the US, which to him
embodied the entire West, as the main and only condition for “a big leap forward,”
i.e., the rapid integration of Russia into Western structures. In effect, this meant
that in the early 1990s, the Yeltsin administration made no distinction between
the EU and NATO, considering both structures part of the US-led Western com-
munity.
President Yeltsin and his team subconsciously seem to have accepted Rus-
sia’s subservient position vis-à-vis the West, although there were no real reasons
for this. In the foreign policy field, the goal of establishing “new relations” with
the West boiled down to declarations of Russia’s adherence to universal human
values, which, though delectable, could not replace the formulation of concrete
foreign policy priorities and aims. Thus, Andrey Kozyrev put forward the concept
of Russia’s “strategic democratic initiative” as an answer to the “new political
thinking” proclaimed by Gorbachev and Shevardnadze. The concept was named
by analogy with Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars).6 In the work of
the first Foreign Minister of Russia, the wish to be witty, verbally adroit and to be
liked by the Western colleagues, and to be unlike the Soviet diplomats, prevailed
over the substance of the Russian foreign policy. These were also the aims of the
Russian President’s speeches. For example, in his first address to the UN Security
Council on January 31, 1992, President Yeltsin said: “Our principles are very sim-
ple and understandable: the supremacy of democracy, human rights and freedoms,
of law and morality” [27]. Several months after that statement, the unconstitution-
al use of force to resolve the internal political crisis in Moscow in October 1993,
devalued the Russian President’s words and scared the West.
In short, in the first decades of post-Soviet Russia, the Kremlin toed the West-
ern political line on a wide range of issues. Such a policy was bound to become a
target of attacks from the anti-Western nationalistic opposition, which criticized
the Foreign Ministry for “betraying” Russia’s interests to please the West. Finally,
this policy did not have much support inside Russia. The Russian political pendu-
lum was doomed to start swinging away from cooperation with the West.
In retrospect, it can safely be said that both Russia and the West lost the
post-bipolar world: the West by its arrogant attitude toward Russia and refusal
to make any substantial changes in its policy, and Russia by making a mess of
democratic transformations and its attempts to regain the Soviet-era great pow-
er status and restore Cold War relations. “Mutual disenchantment with the way
46 SOCIAL SCIENCES Vol. 52, No. 3, 2021

relations have developed over the last 15 years,” writes Academician Aleksey
Arbatov, “has reinforced a feeling of nostalgia in Russia and the US for the simple
two-dimensional construct of the Cold War era world. A good number of Russian
theoreticians today, filling the gaps in an education dominated by the dogma of
Marxism-Leninism, are now immersing themselves with a neophyte’s enthusi-
asm in the century-old ideas of Mackinder on the ‘age-old struggle between sea
and land powers’ and the ceaseless hostility between ‘Western-Christian material-
ism’ and ‘Eastern-Orthodox spirituality,’ and are eagerly sharing their newfound
knowledge with others. The West also has no shortage of people ready to preach
their vision of Russia as an ‘inherently authoritarian, semi-Asiatic and imperialist’
state” [2, p. 13]. Be that as it may, the fact that the bipolarity era in Europe has
not been brought to a close remains a major challenge that Russia, the European
Union, NATO and the US will sooner or late have to address.

Suspended Choice

As we approach the innermost part of the matryoshka that reveals the un-
derlying causes of the failed partnership between Russia and Europe, we must
confront the question why post-Soviet Russia has not made a final and irreversible
choice in favor of Europe. A caveat is in order that the concept of European choice
is much broader than relations between Russia and the European Union. From the
applied point of view, the European vector is an imperative for Russia’s modern-
ization if it is to become a modern or European democratic state. In the broader
historical-philosophical sense, the European choice is Russia’s return to Europe,
to its European roots.
The collapse of the Soviet Union, which marked the end of bipolarity, brought
a dramatic change to international relations in Europe and the whole world. Russia’s
emergence on the world arena as a new independent state confronted the Russian
leadership with the challenge of determining its further destiny, the search for the
most effective model of political and socioeconomic development, a national iden-
tity, a clear-cut foreign policy strategy based on a clear understanding of long-term
national interests and an adequate assessment of the resources for promoting these
interests. In other words, at the turn of the 1990s, like at the turn of the 14th and
15th centuries, in the early 17th century and in the early 20th century, Russia sought
to obtain a new economic and political system, geopolitical space, ideology and
national self-consciousness, political allies and economic partners abroad [3, p. 16].
With regard to foreign policy and, more broadly, national security strategy,
the task of the Russian leadership was to determine Russia’s place and role in the
new post-bipolar system of international relations, to become conscious of and
formulate its national interests and consistently promote and defend them in the
international arena.
The formation of foreign policy interests of a state is in itself an arduous pro-
cess of identifying the state’s wants, but this process becomes particularly difficult
at sharp turns in history. “Each period,” wrote Hegel, “is involved in such peculiar
Russia and the European Union: Deferred Partnership 47

circumstances, exhibits a condition of things so strictly idiosyncratic, that its con-

duct must be regulated by considerations connected with itself, and itself alone.
Amid the pressure of great events, a general principle gives no help. It is useless to
revert to similar circumstances in the Past. The pallid shades of memory struggle
in vain with the life and freedom of the Present” [13, p. 6].
Undoubtedly, after ideological barriers in Europe fell, one of the key foreign
policy priorities for Russia involved the European or Euro-Atlantic area where the
Russian leadership had to build relations with the former opponents of the Soviet
Union, the leading Western countries and their institutions.
The determination of foreign policy goals in this area depended crucially on
how Russia determined its identity. Throughout its history, located at the “in-
tersection” of Europe and Asia, Russia presented itself to the outside world as
a unique country. Its history over the past millennium shows that Russia’s geo-
graphical position at the heart of Eurasia had an abiding influence on its geopolit-
ical evolution, internal development, and foreign policy.
Regardless of the existing political definitions of Europe, which may or may
not include Russia, it is historically, culturally, and geographically an inalienable
part of the European civilization. However, in spite of this Russia has always
been the most remote part of Europe and has never been truly integrated in its
socioeconomic life.
The contradictory and tragic history of Russia, which repeatedly diverted it
from the objective processes of European development, provided fertile soil for
various myths, ideological and political speculation on its uniqueness, its distinct
system of values, its special “mission” in the world. It is no wonder that debates
about the Russian path and choice acquired particular sharpness and political
meaning after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the whole communist system.
The drama of the historical development of Russia, a European country in
its civilizational identity, consists in the fact that for 250 years it had been cut off
from the rest of Europe by the Mongolian yoke, the protracted period of serfdom
and inconsistent reforms that led to its socioeconomic backwardness. The Mongo-
lian yoke played a special role in Russia’s subsequent development because it laid
the foundations of Russian autocracy that emphasized centralized power, personal
loyalty to the sole ruler, a rigorous social hierarchy, militarization of the nation,
and the existence of a huge repressive machine. Later, an ideological superstruc-
ture was put on top of this construct, the justification of Russian backwardness by
its messianic goals and special preordained destiny of the Russian/Soviet empire.
Yet each time an opportunity presented itself, the Soviet/Russian people provided
astonishing examples of a modernization leap and the flourishing of science and
culture.
The myth about the “incompatibility” of Russia and Europe was traditionally
used by the ruling elite in Tsarist Russia and later (under a different ideological
banner) in the USSR to justify the inefficiency of the existing economic and po-
litical system and the resulting lag behind the civilized world. This concept has a
way of springing back to life each time Russia cannot become an advanced pow-
er according to modern standards and feels the need to justify its backwardness
48 SOCIAL SCIENCES Vol. 52, No. 3, 2021

by metaphysical theories such as Moscow being “the third Rome” or a Eurasian

power. The current mounting wave of nostalgia for the former imperial grandeur
again appeals to Russia’s idiosyncrasy summed up in the claim that “Russia is not
Europe.” Sergey Baburin, a prominent anti-Western Russian politician, writes:
“The idea of the development of the Russian land as a territory and as a state
determined the external and internal territory of Russia over several centuries.
This idea underpinned the ‘Moscow is the Third Rome’ doctrine and still forms
the core of modern Russian self-consciousness. Considering territory one of the
key features of any state, it has to be stressed that the tragedy of 1991 is not only
that some internal administrative borders became state borders. The main thing
is that Russia, which was called the Soviet Union in the 20th century, the single
organism, the single culture and the single civilization, has been torn into several
parts” [7, pp. 407, 408]. We believe that those who think along these lines do not
understand why the Soviet empire collapsed. The Soviet Union collapsed not only
because the whole communist system collapsed, but the historical, political and
economic idea of Russia’s unique mission in the world collapsed. “The paradox of
Russian history lies in the continuing ambivalence between messianic drive and
a pervasive sense of insecurity. In its ultimate aberration, this ambivalence gen-
erated fear that, unless the empire expanded, it would implode,” wrote American
historian and politician Henry Kissinger [15, pp. 143-144].
The collapse of the USSR opened up for Russia the prospect of economic
and political modernization and a return to Europe as a modern prosperous state.
Unfortunately, these opportunities were not used by the 1990s reformers. More-
over, their miscalculations in the choice of economic model largely discredited
the concepts of market, democracy, and cooperation with the West. These mis-
calculations can be attributed to the fact that the new Russian leadership, which
came to power on the wave of revolutionary transformations, had no reforming
experience since they all came out of the Soviet era. Believing that the fact of their
coming to power meant the triumph of democracy, the new leadership, for all its
good intentions, set about ruling the country by essentially the same authoritarian
methods. In creating a market economy at all costs (shock therapy), the reformers
hoped that the invisible hand of the market would transform the political founda-
tion of post-Soviet Russia. Having taken a step toward a parliamentary system, to
be on the safe side, they put the institution of the presidency above the separation
of powers and created a hybrid form of state with elements of autocracy and un-
developed democracy. The imperative of consistent Europeanization of Russia
was supplanted by a naïve-pragmatic calculation that “the West will help us” [5].
The program of shock therapy was imposed on an unprepared society by
force, by typically neo-Bolshevik methods, without a broad professional dis-
cussion, without forming a broad political consensus required for reform to suc-
ceed [6, p. 7]. The political crisis in October of 1993 – the stand-off between the
Yeltsin-led “reformers” and the Supreme Soviet – had an economic dimension to
it, being a reaction to the lack of a political consensus on the reforms being carried
out. It triggered an unprecedented spike of inflation in 1992-1993 that plunged a
huge section of the population below the poverty line, the government became
Russia and the European Union: Deferred Partnership 49

fixated on combating inflation, tightening financial screws, canceling subsidies and

benefits, withholding wages and pensions, and curtailing state social programs. The
1993 crisis put the country on the brink of a civil war. The use of force to resolve
the crisis, followed by the dissolution of the Supreme Soviet, far from putting down
opposition to the reform course, united it, causing a groundswell of conservative an-
ti-Western sentiments, which was reflected in the composition of the State Duma and
the widening gulf between the country’s leadership and the bulk of the population.
Another key political consequence of the reorganization of the economy and
redistribution of property in the 1990s was the emergence of an oligarchic model
of relations between business and power based on family ties and the forcing of
decisions by a narrow group of individuals close to the President. The process of
big business and the top echelons of state bureaucracy growing together devel-
oped rapidly, leading to monstrous corruption at all levels of power, which was
converted into money. Thus the political and economic model of modern Russia
was beginning to take shape as early as the 1990s. Its main features are, first, the
predominance of the institution of the presidency over the separation of powers
and, second, the orientation of the economy toward commodity export, which is
by definition a model of an authoritarian political system. Such a model inexora-
bly leads to reorientation toward Asia, because it is there that one finds markets
for energy resources that are potentially promising, a benevolent or at least in-
different attitude to authoritarianism and nationalism in all their manifestations.
Granted, modern Russia is not the Soviet Union. It has a market (albeit undevel-
oped) economy and all the trappings of a democratic state. However, they have
yet to be invested with real content. We also see a creeping restoration of many
traits of the Soviet one-party system represented by the new nomenklatura, broad-
ening powers of the security bodies, the judiciary and law-enforcement bodies in
social life, huge amounts are spent on building up military might, and a rehabil-
itation of Stalinism is taking place. As a counterweight to European liberalism,
the Orthodox imperial ideology, the mythology and the great power tradition of
Tsarist Russia are being revived. In other words, the traditional Russian construct
is being restored under a new roof.
Russia has diverged from the European path more than once in the course of its
history, but each time after zigzags and aberrations it has returned to the former path.

What Does the Future Hold in Store for Us?

Because of the profound rift between Russia and the European Union, we can
hardly look forward to robust cooperation, least of all in the international political
sphere. Occasional interaction is possible where the interests of the RF and the
EU coincide, whatever their motives. That was demonstrated during the course
of cooperation in salvaging the Iran nuclear deal. To put it another way, selective
cooperation is the most the two sides will be capable of in the foreseeable future.
It will take cardinal changes on the part of the European Union and Russia to
change the existing paradigm.
50 SOCIAL SCIENCES Vol. 52, No. 3, 2021

One condition for a turn toward normalization of relations between the part-
ners is the settlement of the Ukrainian conflict in the Minsk format, which may
remove the issue of sanctions that hurt both sides. However, as shown above, the
deep roots of the current disarray in relations between Russia and the European
Union are traceable to other layers of the disagreements between the partners.
Russia would like to get guarantees from the West that NATO will not invade the
CIS space, but the Western powers cannot give such guarantees “over the heads”
of Ukraine and Georgia. This calls for a new all-European conference to discuss
and work out rules for the post-bipolar Europe. That in turn is impossible without
settling the Ukraine conflict. A vicious circle is formed from which there seems
to be no way out. Yet there is a way out. It would involve the organization of an
international UN-supervised peacekeeping operation on the territory of Ukraine
in the corridor separating the opposing sides. An agreement on such an operation
between the RF and the European partners could be a thread that, if pulled at,
could unravel whole tangle of contradictions.
The forming of a new agenda in relations between the European Union and
Russia would depend greatly on the dynamics of their internal development. Will
the European Union be able to strengthen its international positions and become a
real power center? Will the EU be able to overcome the internal division between
“the old and new Europe,” between north and south, between Euro-optimists and
Euro-sceptics, cope with the consequences of Brexit, the pandemic and gain stra-
tegic autonomy? As for Russia, its relations with the European Union will depend
on the vector of its domestic development, above all the reappraisal of the Eurasian
path of development, renunciation of anti-Westernism and the adoption of a Europe-
an identity. Some optimism can be derived from the words of Vladimir Putin at the
Davos Forum (January 2021). The Russian President supported “the position of the
outstanding European political leader, the former Chancellor Helmut Kohl who said
that if European culture was to survive and remain a center of world civilization in
the future, then of course Western Europe and Russia should be together. It is hard
to disagree with this. We have the same point of view and position” [20].

References

1. Alexandrova-Arbatova N. The EU-Russia Partnership: A New Context.

European Strategic Partnerships Observatory. Egmont-FRIDE, Policy
brief 5, July 2012. Available at: http://www.egmontinstitute.be/content/up-
loads/2014/01/PB5_EU_RUSSIA_PARTNERSHIP.pdf.
2. Arbatov A. Moscow and Munich: A New Framework for Russian Domes-
tic and Foreign Policies. Working Papers no. 3. Moscow: Carnegie Moscow
Center, 2007.
3. Arbatov A. Security: The Russian Choice. Moscow: EPItsentr, 1999. (In Rus-
sian.)
4. Arbatova N. K. (Ed.) The EU-Russia Relations and the Ukraine Crisis. Mos-
cow: IMEMO, 2014. (In Russian.)
Russia and the European Union: Deferred Partnership 51

5. Arbatova N. K. The European Pendulum of Russia. Nezavisimaya gazeta. No-

vember 25, 2020. Available at: https://www.ng.ru/ideas/2020-11-25/7_8023_
heritage.html. (In Russian.)
6. Arbatova N. K. National Interests and Foreign Policy of Russia: European
Direction (1991-1999). Moscow: IMEMO, 2005. (In Russian.)
7. Baburin S. N. State Territory: Legal and Geopolitical Issues. Moscow: MGU,
1997. (In Russian.)
8. Bertram C. Why NATO Must Enlarge. NATO Review. March 1997. Vol. 45.
No. 2, pp. 14-17. Available at: https://www.nato.int/docu/review/1997/9702-4.
htm.
9. Croft A. NATO Unlikely to Grant Georgia Step to Membership: Diplomats.
Reuters. June 20, 2014. Available at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-na-
to-georgia-idUSKBN0EV1HZ20140620.
10. Eastern Partnership: Problems of Implementation and Possible Consequenc-
es. Proceedings of the Meeting of the Expert Council of the Federation Coun-
cil Committee on the Commonwealth of Independent States. November 19,
2009. Available at: http://council.gov.ru/media/files/41d44f243fdc22b87385.
pdf. (In Russian.)
11. Ehrke M. The European Union and the Post-Communist Sphere. Compass
2020. Available at: https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/iez/05160.pdf.
12. Freedman L. The New Great Politics. Russia and the West: The Twenty First
Century Security Environment. Ed. by A. Arbatov, K. Kaiser, R. Legvold.
Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1999, pp. 21-43.
13. Hegel G. W. F. The Philosophy of History. Trans. by J. Sibree. London; New
York: The Colonial Press, 1900.
14. Kearns I. Kissinger’s Cold War Lessons for the EU’s Eastern Partnership.
ELN. February 19, 2014. Available at: https://www.europeanleadershipnet-
work.org/commentary/kissingers-cold-war-lessons-for-the-eus-eastern-part-
nership/.
15. Kissinger H. Diplomacy. New York: Simon & Shuster, 1994.
16. Kozyrev A. Russia Actually Alone Bears the Burden of Real Peacekeeping in
Conflicts along the Perimeter of Its Borders. Nezavisimaya gazeta. September
22, 1993. (In Russian.)
17. Mandelbaum M. Introduction: Russian Foreign Policy in Historical Per-
spective. Council on Foreign Relations. Available at: https://www.cfr.org/
excerpt-new-russian-foreign-policy.
18. Medvedev D. A. Speech at Meeting with German Political, Parliamentary
and Civic Leaders. June 5, 2008. Berlin. Available at: https://www.europarl.
europa.eu/meetdocs/2004_2009/documents/dv/d_ru_20080617_04_/D_
RU_20080617_04_en.pdf.
19. “No Great Europe without Russia – No Great Russia without Europe.” Report
of the Commission for the Greater Europe. Helsinki: Suomen kansallisvi-
estinta Oy, 1994. (Gummerus Printing 1995).
20. Putin V. Speech by Vladimir Putin at the Davos Forum. Vesti. January 27,
2021. Available at: https://www.vesti.ru/article/2515983. (In Russian.)
52 SOCIAL SCIENCES Vol. 52, No. 3, 2021

21. Rahr A. Many Want to Return to the Cold War. Vzglyad. April 2, 2014. Avail-
able at: https://vz.ru/world/2014/4/2/680168.html. (In Russian.)
22. Russia Would React to NATO Build-up Near Borders: Minister. Reuters. June
9, 2014. Available at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-crisis-rus-
sia-nato-idUSKBN0EK0VJ20140609.
23. Schroeder Called the Expansion of NATO the Reason for the Return of
Crimea to Russia. Kommersant. January 17, 2021. Available at: https://www.
kommersant.ru/doc/4652261. (In Russian.)
24. USA: Ukraine Must Choose between the EU and NATO. Rosbalt. March 21,
2009. Available at: https://www.rosbalt.ru/ukraina/2009/03/21/627819.html.
(In Russian.)
25. Westad O. A. The Cold War and America’s Delusion of Victory. New York
Times. August 28, 2017. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/28/
opinion/cold-war-american-soviet-victory.html.
26. When Worlds Collided. The Guardian. January 7, 2006. Available at: https://
www.theguardian.com/books/2006/jan/08/historybooks.features.
27. Yeltsin B. N. Speech by Russian President Boris Yeltsin at a Meeting to the
UN Security Council (January 31, 1992). Available at: https://news.un.org/ru/
audio/2013/02/1002851. (In Russian.)

Notes
1
GUAM is a regional organization created in 1997 (the Organization’s Charter was signed in
2001 and statute in 2006) by Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova (Uzbekistan was
a member between 1999 and 2005).
2
The Copenhagen criteria are criteria for admission to the European Union adopted in June
1993 at a European Council meeting in Copenhagen.
3
Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Bulgaria, Rumania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and
Slovenia.
4
Initially the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe. On January 1, 1995, it was
decided to rename the CSCE into OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-Operation in
Europe).
5
SPA between Russia and the EU was signed in 1997 for 10 years and automatically ex-
tended in 2007. SPA was to be replaced by a new Strategic Partnership Agreement, but the
negotiations were suspended after Crimea became part of Russia.
6
Both initiatives are referred to by the acronym SDI.

Translated by Yevgeny Filippov